How Many Dune Movies Denis Villeneuve Plans To Make

After first expressing an interest in directing a Dune movie, Denis Villeneuve got his wish and was given the keys to reboot the entire franchise. It's still early days, but the prolific director isn't shy about talking about the project. He's already given some idea as to what fans can expect from his Dune movie, such as how it will differ from the 1984 film version by David Lynch. It sounds like it'll be a fairly ambitious project and one movie might not be enough to tell this story. According to Villeneuve, he currently plans to make two Dune movies.

Dune will probably take two years to make. The goal is to make two films, maybe more.

Denis Villeneuve recently appeared at Montreal's (double checks spelling) Place des Arts' Théâtre Maisonneuve for the (again with the spelling) Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois (via the Playlist) to give an "intimate lesson on cinema" to a packed theater audience. While on stage, Villeneuve let some details on his work-in-progress Dune movie. The movie won't be arriving anytime soon and will likely take two years to make, but the big scoop is that he hopes to make two movies. Whether more are on the way, it's far too early to tell, but this bit of news should come as a relief to fans of the books.

For those who may not know, Dune is a sci-fi novel written by Frank Herbert and follows Paul Atreides, a young man whose family controls the desert planet Arrakis, which is the only world that contains the highly-valued resource known as melange. But Paul and his family are soon betrayed and he must lead a rebellion to take back the planet. That really only touches the bare basics of what's going on. It's a pretty bonkers book, jam-packed with dense material and mythology. It might be too much for only one movie to tackle, so dividing the story into two parts makes a lot of sense.

David Lynch's version of the story never quite worked out, so this could help Villeneuve avoid rushing through the tale. Funnily enough, Villeneuve had considered cutting his Blade Runner sequel into two parts after the initial edit was four hours long. Obviously, they had to cut that down, but three hours was still probably asking a bit too much. At least Villeneuve can now better prepare for that ahead of time.

It's still very early in the process with Dune, but keep checking in with CinemaBlend and we'll keep you updated with all the latest information as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, 2018 isn't a barren landscape without movies; check out our 2018 movie release guide to find everything coming soon to a theater near you.